Swarm Intelligence

Origins in Artificial Life (Alife) Research

1. ALife studies how computational techniques
can help when studying biological phenomena
2. ALife studies how biological techniques can
help out with computational problems

Two main Swarm Intelligence based

methods
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
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Swarm Intelligence
Swarm Intelligence (SI) is the property of a system
whereby
the collective behaviors of (unsophisticated) agents
interacting locally with their environment
cause coherent functional global patterns to emerge.
SI provides a basis with which it is possible to explore
collective (or distributed) problem solving without
centralized control or the provision of a global model.
Leverage the power of complex adaptive systems to
solve difficult non-linear stochastic problems
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Swarm Intelligence
Characteristics of a swarm:

Distributed, no central control or data source;

Limited communication
No (explicit) model of the environment;
Perception of environment (sensing)
Ability to react to environment changes.

Swarm Intelligence
Social interactions (locally shared
knowledge) provides the basis for unguided
problem solving
The efficiency of the effort is related to but
not dependent upon the degree or
connectedness of the network and the
number of interacting agents
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Swarm Intelligence
Robust exemplars of problem-solving in
Nature
Survival in stochastic hostile environment
Social interaction creates complex behaviors
Behaviors modified by dynamic environment.

Emergent behavior observed in:

Bacteria, immune system, ants, birds
And other social animals
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Particle Swarm Optimization

(PSO)

History
Main idea and Algorithm
Comparisons with GA
Advantages and Disadvantages
Implementation and Applications

Particle Swarm Optimization

(PSO)

History
Main idea and Algorithm
Comparisons with GA
Advantages and Disadvantages
Implementation and Applications

Origins and Inspiration of PSO

Population based stochastic optimization
technique inspired by social behaviour of bird
flocking or fish schooling.
Developed by Jim Kennedy, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor and Russ
Eberhart, Purdue University
A concept for optimizing nonlinear functions
using particle swarm methodology
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 Inspired by simulation social behavior

Related to bird flocking, fish schooling and swarming
theory
- steer toward the center
- match neighbors velocity
- avoid collisions
Suppose
a group of birds are randomly searching food in an area.
There is only one piece of food in the area being searched.
All the birds do not know where the food is. But they know
how far the food is in each iteration.
So what's the best strategy to find the food? The effective
one is to follow the bird which is nearest to the food.
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What is PSO?
In PSO, each single solution is a "bird" in the
search space.
Call it "particle".
All of particles have fitness values
which are evaluated by the fitness function to be
optimized, and

have velocities
which direct the flying of the particles.

The particles fly through the problem space by

following the current optimum particles.

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PSO Algorithm
Initialize with randomly generated particles.
Update through generations in search for
optima
Each particle has a velocity and position
Update for each particle uses two best
values.
Pbest: best solution (fitness) it has achieved so
far. (The fitness value is also stored.)
Gbest: best value, obtained so far by any
particle in the population.
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 PSO algorithm is not only a tool for

optimization, but also a tool for representing
sociocognition of human and artificial agents,
based on principles of social psychology.
A PSO system combines local search methods
with global search methods, attempting to
balance exploration and exploitation.

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 Population-based search procedure in which

individuals called particles change their
position (state) with time.

individual has position xi

& individual changes velocity vi

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 Particles fly around in a multidimensional

search space. During flight, each particle
adjusts its position according to its own
experience, and according to the experience of
a neighboring particle, making use of the best
position encountered by itself and its neighbor.

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Particle Swarm Optimization

(PSO) Process
1. Initialize population in hyperspace
2. Evaluate fitness of individual particles
3. Modify velocities based on previous best and
global (or neighborhood) best positions
4. Terminate on some condition
5. Go to step 2
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PSO Algorithm
a
b

Update each particle, each generation

v[i] = v[i] + c1 * rand() * (pbest[i] - present[])
+ c2 * rand() * (gbest[i] - present[i])
and
present[i] = persent[i] + v[i]
where c1 and c2 are learning factors (weights)
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inertia

Personal influence

Social (global) influence

PSO Algorithm
a
b

Update each particle, each generation

v[i] = v[i] + c1 * rand() * (pbest[i] - present[])
+ c2 * rand() * (gbest[i] - present[i])
and
present[i] = present[i] + v[i]
where c1 and c2 are learning factors (weights)
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PSO Algorithm
Inertia Weight

vidnew wi vidold c1 rand1 ( pid xid ) c2 rand 2 ( p gd xid )

xidnew xidold vidnew
d is the dimension, c1 and c2 are positive constants,
rand1 and rand2 are random numbers, and w is the
inertia weight
Velocity can be limited to Vmax
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Particle Swarm Optimization

(PSO)

History
Main idea and Algorithm
Comparisons with GA
Advantages and Disadvantages
Implementation and Applications

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PSO and GA Comparison

Commonalities
PSO and GA are both population based stochastic
optimization
both algorithms start with a group of a randomly
generated population,
both have fitness values to evaluate the population.
Both update the population and search for the optimium
with random techniques.
Both systems do not guarantee success.
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PSO and GA Comparison

Differences
PSO does not have genetic operators like crossover and
mutation. Particles update themselves with the internal
velocity.
They also have memory, which is important to the
algorithm.
Particles do not die
the information sharing mechanism in PSO is
significantly different
Info from best to others, GA population moves together
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 PSO has a memory

not what that best solution was, but where that
best solution was
Quality: population responds to quality factors pbest
and gbest
Diverse response: responses allocated between pbest
and gbest
Stability: population changes state only when gbest
changes
Adaptability: population does change state when
gbest changes
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 There is no selection in PSO

all particles survive for the length of the run
PSO is the only EA that does not remove
candidate population members
In PSO, topology is constant; a neighbor is a
neighbor
Population size: Jim 10-20, Russ 30-40

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PSO Velocity Update Equations

Global version vs Neighborhood version
change pgd to pld .
where pgd is the global best position
and pld is the neighboring best position

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Inertia Weight
Large inertia weight facilitates global
exploration, small on facilitates local
exploration
w must be selected carefully and/or decreased
over the run
Inertia weight seems to have attributes of
temperature in simulated annealing
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Vmax
An important parameter in PSO; typically the
only one adjusted
Clamps particles velocities on each dimension
Determines fineness with which regions are
searched
if too high, can fly past optimal solutions
if too low, can get stuck in local minima
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PSO Pros and Cons

Simple in concept
Easy to implement
Computationally efficient
Application to combinatorial problems?
Binary PSO

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Books and Website

Swarm Intelligence by Kennedy, Eberhart, and Shi,
Morgan Kaufmann division of Academic Press, 2001.
http://www.engr.iupui.edu/~eberhart/web/PSObook.html
http://www.particleswarm.net/
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~hux/PSO.shtml
http://www.cis.syr.edu/~mohan/pso/
http://clerc.maurice.free.fr/PSO/index.htm
http://users.erols.com/cathyk/jimk.html
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Ant Colony Optimization

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ACO Concept
Ants (blind) navigate from nest to food source
Shortest path is discovered via pheromone trails

each ant moves at random

pheromone is deposited on path
ants detect lead ants path, inclined to follow
more pheromone on path increases probability of path
being followed

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ACO System
Virtual trail accumulated on path segments
Starting node selected at random
Path selected at random
based on amount of trail present on possible paths from
starting node
higher probability for paths with more trail

Ant reaches next node, selects next path

Continues until reaches starting node
Finished tour is a solution
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ACO System, cont.

A completed tour is analyzed for optimality
Trail amount adjusted to favor better solutions
better solutions receive more trail
worse solutions receive less trail
higher probability of ant selecting path that is part of a
better-performing tour

New cycle is performed

Repeated until most ants select the same tour on
every cycle (convergence to solution)
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ACO System, cont.

Often applied to TSP (Travelling Salesman
Problem): shortest path between n nodes
Algorithm in Pseudocode:
Initialize Trail
Do While (Stopping Criteria Not Satisfied) Cycle Loop
Do Until (Each Ant Completes a Tour) Tour Loop
Local Trail Update
End Do
Analyze Tours
Global Trail Update
End Do
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ACO Background
Discrete optimization problems difficult to
solve
Soft computing techniques developed in
past ten years:
Genetic algorithms (GAs)
based on natural selection and genetics

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)

modeling ant colony behavior
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ACO Background, cont.

Developed by Marco Dorigo (Milan, Italy),
and others in early 1990s
Some common applications:
Quadratic assignment problems
Scheduling problems
Dynamic routing problems in networks

Theoretical analysis difficult

algorithm is based on a series of random decisions (by
artificial ants)
probability of decisions changes on each iteration
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What is ACO as Optimization Tech

Probabilistic technique for solving
computational problems which can be
reduced to finding good paths through
graphs
They are inspired by the behavior of ants in
finding paths from the colonyto food.

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Implementation
Can be used for both Static and Dynamic
Combinatorial optimization problems
Convergence is guaranteed, although the
speed is unknown
Value
Solution

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The Algorithm
Ant Colony Algorithms are typically use to solve
minimum cost problems.
We may usually have N nodes and A undirected
arcs
There are two working modes for the ants: either
forwards or backwards.
Pheromones are only deposited in backward mode.
(so that we know how good the path was to update
its trail)
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The Algorithm
The ants memory allows them to retrace the
path it has followed while searching for the
destination node
Before moving backward on their
memorized path, they eliminate any loops
from it. While moving backwards, the ants
leave pheromones on the arcs they
traversed.
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The Algorithm
The ants evaluate the cost of the paths they
have traversed.
The shorter paths will receive a greater
deposit of pheromones. An evaporation
rule will be tied with the pheromones,
which will reduce the chance for poor
quality solutions.
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The ACO Algorithm

At the beginning of the search process, a constant
amount of pheromone is assigned to all arcs. When
located at a node i an ant k uses the pheromone trail
to compute the probability of choosing j as the next
node:

pijk

where

ij
lN ik

il

if j N ik

k
0
if
j

N
i
is the neighborhood of ant k when
in node i.

N ik

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The Algorithm
When the arc (i,j) is traversed , the
pheromone value changes as follows:

ij ij

By using this rule, the probability increases

that forthcoming ants will use this arc.
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The Algorithm
After each ant k has moved to the next node,
the pheromones evaporate by the following
equation to all the arcs:

ij (1 p ) ij , (i, j ) A
where p (0,1]is a parameter. An iteration is a
complete cycle involving ants movement,
pheromone evaporation, and pheromone
deposit.
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Steps for Solving a Problem

by ACO
1. Represent the problem in the form of sets of
components and transitions, or by a set of
weighted graphs, on which ants can build solutions
2. Define the meaning of the pheromone trails
3. Define the heuristic preference for the ant while
constructing a solution
4. If possible implement a efficient local search
algorithm for the problem to be solved.
5. Choose a specific ACO algorithm and apply to
problem being solved
6. Tune the parameter of the ACO algorithm.
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Applications
Efficiently Solves NP hard Problems
Routing
TSP (Traveling Salesman Problem)
Vehicle Routing
Sequential Ordering

Assignment

1
5

QAP (Quadratic Assignment Problem)

Graph Coloring
Generalized Assignment
Frequency Assignment
University Course Time Scheduling
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Applications
Scheduling
Job Shop
Open Shop
Flow Shop
Total tardiness (weighted/non-weighted)
Project Scheduling
Group Shop
Subset
Multi-Knapsack
Max Independent Set
Redundancy Allocation
Set Covering
Weight Constrained Graph Tree partition
Arc-weighted L cardinality tree
Maximum Clique
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Applications
Other

Shortest Common Sequence

Constraint Satisfaction
2D-HP protein folding
Bin Packing

Machine Learning
Classification Rules
Bayesian networks
Fuzzy systems

Network Routing
Connection oriented network routing
Connection network routing
Optical network routing
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Ant Colony Algorithms

Let um and lm be the number of ants that
have used the upper and lower branches.
The probability Pu(m) with which the
(m+1)th ant chooses the upper branch is:

k
)
u
m
P ( m)
(u m k ) (l m k )
h

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Traveling Salesperson Problem

Famous NP-Hard Optimization Problem
Given a fully connected, symmetric G(V,E)
with known edge costs, find the minimum
cost tour.
Artificial ants move from vertex to vertex to
order to find the minimum cost tour using
only pheromone mediated trails.
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Traveling Salesperson Problem

The three main ideas that this ant colony
algorithm has adopted from real ant
colonies are:
The ants have a probabilistic preference for
paths with high pheromone value
Shorter paths tend to have a higher rate of
growth in pheromone value
It uses an indirect communication system
through pheromone in edges
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Traveling Salesperson Problem

Ants select the next vertex based on a weighted
probability function based on two factors:
The number of edges and the associated cost
The trail (pheromone) left behind by other ant agents.

Each agent modifies the environment in two

different ways :
Local trail updating: As the ant moves between cities
it updates the amount of pheromone on the edge
Global trail updating: When all ants have completed a
tour the ant that found the shortest route updates the
edges in its path
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Traveling Salesperson Problem

Local Updating is used to avoid very strong
pheromone edges and hence increase
exploration (and hopefully avoid locally
optimal solutions).
The Global Updating function gives the
shortest path higher reinforcement by
increasing the amount of pheromone on the
edges of the shortest path.
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Empirical Results
Compared Ant Colony Algorithm to
standard algorithms and meta-heuristic
algorithms on Oliver 30 a 30 city TSP
Standard: 2-Opt, Lin-Kernighan,
Meta-Heuristics: Tabu Search and
Simulated Annealing
Conducted 10 replications of each
algorithm and provided averaged results
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Comparison to Standard Algorithms

Examined Solution
Quality not speed; in
general, standard
algorithms were
significantly faster.
Best ACO solution - 420

2-Opt L-K
Near
Neighbor

437

421

Far Insert

421

420

Near Insert

492

420

Space Fill

431

421

Sweep

426

421

Random

663

421
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Comparison to Meta-Heuristic
Algorithms
Meta-Heuristics are algorithms that can be applied to a variety of
problems with a minimum of customization.
Comparing ACO to other Meta-heuristics provides a fair
market comparison (vice TSP specific algorithms).

Best

Mean

Std Dev

ACO

420

420.4

1.3

Tabu

420

420.6

1.5

SA

422

459.8

25.1
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Other Application Areas

Scheduling : Scheduling is a widespread
problem of practical importance.
Paul Forsyth & Anthony Wren, University
of Leeds Computer Science department
developed a bus driver scheduling
application using ant colony concepts.

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Advantages and Disadvantages

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Advantages and Disadvantages

For TSPs (Traveling Salesman Problem), relatively efficient
for a small number of nodes, TSPs can be solved by
exhaustive search
for a large number of nodes, TSPs are very computationally
difficult to solve (NP-hard) exponential time to
convergence
Performs better against other global optimization techniques
for TSP (neural net, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing)
Compared to GAs (Genetic Algorithms):
retains memory of entire colony instead of previous
generation only
less affected by poor initial solutions (due to combination
of random path selection and colony memory)
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Advantages and Disadvantages,

cont.
Can be used in dynamic applications (adapts to
changes such as new distances, etc.)
Has been applied to a wide variety of applications
As with GAs, good choice for constrained discrete
problems (not a gradient-based algorithm)

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Advantages and Disadvantages,

cont.
Theoretical analysis is difficult:
Due to sequences of random decisions (not
independent)
Probability distribution changes by iteration
Research is experimental rather than theoretical
Convergence is guaranteed, but time to
convergence uncertain
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Advantages and Disadvantages,

cont.
Tradeoffs in evaluating convergence:
In NP-hard problems, need high-quality solutions quickly focus
is on quality of solutions
In dynamic network routing problems, need solutions for changing
conditions focus is on effective evaluation of alternative paths

Coding is somewhat complicated, not straightforward

Pheromone trail additions/deletions, global updates and local
updates
Large number of different ACO algorithms to exploit different
problem characteristics

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Sources

Dorigo, Marco and Sttzle, Thomas. (2004) Ant Colony

Optimization, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Dorigo, Marco, Gambardella, Luca M., Middendorf, Martin. (2002)
Guest Editorial, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation,
6(4): 317-320.
Thompson, Jonathan, Ant Colony Optimization.
http://www.orsoc.org.uk/region/regional/swords/swords.ppt, accessed
April 24, 2005.
Camp, Charles V., Bichon, Barron, J. and Stovall, Scott P. (2005)
Design of Steel Frames Using Ant Colony Optimization, Journal of
Structural Engineeering, 131 (3):369-379.
Fjalldal, Johann Bragi, An Introduction to Ant Colony Algorithms.
http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/research/nlp/gazdar/teach/atc/19
99/web/johannf/ants.html
, accessed April 24, 2005.
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Questions?

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